212 =E. L. Berthoud—Sir Francis. Drake's Anchorage. 
tars and successful buccaneers laden with plunder, than the 
honors of a sober discovery, while the inane farce of taking pos- 
session for the crown of England disregarded the prior rights of 
Spanish discovery many years before Drake’s landing. 
Fletcher, who enters in some detail as to what took place dur- 
ing their residence in the bay, says, on page 64: “ This country 
our general named Albion,” ete. Another reason for the “act of 
possession ” was evidently Drake’s idea that by it he reaffirmed 
England’s denial of Spain’s monopoly, founded on the absurd 
bull of Pope Alexander sharing the eastern and western hemis- 
pheres between Spain and Portugal, a partition scouted by both 
France and England. The absurdity of the “act of possession ” 
by Sir Francis Drake was in later years repeated in numerous 
localities on this globe with signal advantage to England. 
In this manner the poor ignorant aborigines of Africa, Asia, 
and America have found themselves invested with the honors of 
allodial possession, duly transferred to England by the magic of 
treaties. These, with the claims of first discovery conveniently 
at hand, backed by presents of cast-off clothing, rum, theatrical 
crowns and medals of Britannia, formed the foundation for future 
seizure and annexation. 
July 23, 1579, Drake left his anchoring ground, the Indians 
taking a sorrowful farewell, signaling with fires the departure of 
the buccaneers. 
Fletcher now tells us ‘‘that not farre without the harbrough 
did lye certain isles (we called them the isles of Saint James), 
having on them plentiful and great store of seals and birds, with 
one of which we fell July 24th, whereon we found such provision 
as might completely serve our turn for awhile.” * 
These islands, called by Fletcher the Saint James, are un- 
doubtedly the Farallones, yet it took them one day’s sail to reach 
them from their anchorage. We can hardly think it would take 
a day to sail from Drakes bay or San Francisco harbor to reach 
these outlying islets. The preponderance of locality and dis- 
tance seems to point to Bodega bay as Drake’s harbor. 
It does not seem possible that in their desultory sailing up 
and down the coast they would have sailed right into San Fran- 
cisco bay without hesitation or difficulty in finding it. 
Then, again, it seems they discovered the Saint James islands 
only when they left, the coast of California. Could they have 
os Loe. cit. 
